Latest / Reformed Thinking / Afflicted but Not Defeated: The Lord Preserves His People (Psalm 129) | Charles Spurgeon

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Afflicted but Not Defeated: The Lord Preserves His People (Psalm 129) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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You know, usually when we talk about a garden, there is this
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expectation of like, peace. Right.
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Yeah, Sanctuary. Yeah, a sanctuary.
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You pick. You're planting the seeds, you
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water the soil, and the gardener just sort of watches the green
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shoots come up. It is very quiet.
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Quiet, restorative. It feels clean, you know, and
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comforting. We like growth to be gentle, to
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be natural, to happen in the sunshine with a soft breeze.
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Of course, that is the modern ideal.
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But then you step into the agricultural world of the
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ancient Near East, yeah, specifically as it is used to
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describe human suffering, and suddenly that peaceful garden is
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just gone. Oh, completely gone.
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We are looking at a landscape of cultivation that is, well,
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honestly, it is violent. It is the absolute definition of
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harsh, unrelenting husbandry. Yeah, that idyllic picture of a
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modern backyard garden. It does not map onto the ancient
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world at all. I mean, when you look at the
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agricultural metaphors used in antiquity, you are looking at
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sweat, heavy iron, stubborn animals.
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Just tearing up the earth by force.
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Exactly. I mean precisely that it is a
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violent disruption of the soil. Welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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Today we are taking a deep dive into the source material
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surrounding Psalm 129. A really intense text.
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It really is, and for this deep dive we are pulling heavily from
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Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David, alongside some
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brilliant commentaries from John Calvin, Alexander Henderson,
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David Dixon and Robert Nisbet. Some of the sharpest minds on
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this subject. For sure, to set the scene for
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you as you listen, Psalm 129 is what is known as a song of
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degrees or a song of a sense. Right, the Pilgrim songs.
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Yeah, these were the songs sung by pilgrims on the literal Rd.
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going up to the Temple in Jerusalem, and what stands out
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immediately to me is just the rustic nature of the song.
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It is very earthy. Earthy is a great word for it.
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It overflows with agricultural imagery.
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It feels very reminiscent of the books of Ruth or Amos.
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Well, the tone of the singer here is critical to grasp before
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we even look at the text itself. The person singing this is not a
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new convert who expects a life of ease.
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Right. Not a rookie.
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No, this is the mature, tested voice of an older believer,
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someone looking back on an entire lifetime of affliction.
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They have the scars to prove their faith, Yeah.
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And the song starts so abruptly, almost as if the singer has been
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brooding in silence for hours, turning over the history of
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God's people in their mind. And suddenly the thoughts just
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ignite. And they have to.
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Speak, it just bursts out. The text begins with verse one.
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Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, May Israel now
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say. It is quite the opening.
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It is. I'm really struck by the
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phrasing there. The psalmist refers to the
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enemies simply as they. It is such a vague pronoun.
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Very vague. Because if I were writing a song
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about my enemies, I would probably name them.
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I would want everyone to know, you know who did this to me.
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Give them a specific call out. Right, But leaving it as they
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feels heavier somehow. It feels like the opposition is
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just a constant, inescapable reality.
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That pronoun they carries immense weight by refusing to
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name a specific king or a specific rival nation.
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It denotes A nameless innumerable mass of enemies.
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Which is terrifying, honestly. John Calvin provides a really
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brilliant analysis of this. He notes that the world is
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filled with foes, both external and internal, who are armed by
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Satan to destroy good men. So it's not just one guy causing
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trouble. Right.
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If the psalmist had just said the Assyrians or the Egyptians,
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it would lock the scope of the song to a single historical
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event. But they captures the reality
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that the opposition is constant, it comes from all sides.
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It is a collective, relentless force.
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It makes the opposition feel like a feature of the system
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rather than a bug. Like if you are following God,
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the world will instinctively push back.
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That is the baseline expectation.
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And then there is that phrase from my youth when the song says
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this on behalf of Israel, we are looking at a history of trial
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that began incredibly early. Very early.
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Think about their origins. Yeah, if you trace the timeline,
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their youth was spent as slaves in Egypt.
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That was their national cradle. 400 years of making bricks
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without straw. Facing the infanticide of their
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male children under Pharaoh. Just horrific stuff from day
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one. The affliction was baked into
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their genesis as a people, and then after Egypt, their toddler
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years, so to speak, were spent wandering in a hostile
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wilderness. Facing attacks in the
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Amalekites. Right, who picked off the weak
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and the stragglers at the back of the line?
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And even when they reached maturity and entered Canaan,
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they were surrounded by hostile nations.
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Philistines, Moabites, you name it.
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So to say from my youth signifies that persecution is
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the standard expected state of the church.
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Spades and grace are cradled in opposition.
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As soon as the manchild is born, the dragon is waiting to devour
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it. That is a staggering reality for
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you to carry as a listener, the idea that opposition is not a
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sign that something has gone wrong, but rather the standard
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operating procedure. It is a huge paradigm shift.
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But this brings up a massive theological tension because we
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are talking about a sovereign God who possesses the ability to
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stop the opposition at any second.
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He could end it with a word. So why does he permit this?
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Why does he deny his people a peaceful earthly existence and
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instead ordain this relentless affliction?
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It is the classic question of suffering.
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Robert Nisbet tackles this precise tension, and he lays out
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three distinct reasons why a sovereign God brings affliction
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upon his people. OK, let's unpack those.
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The first reason he gives is safety.
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I have to say, safety sounds entirely counterintuitive.
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I know it does. Because when I think of safety,
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I think of a fortress, a solid bank account, a healthy body,
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peace on my borders. How on earth does affliction
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provide safety? Well, it provides safety from
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our own wandering hearts. Human nature is such that when
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we are completely comfortable, we drift.
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Religion without sorrow Pines away.
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We fall asleep at the wheel. Think about King David.
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When was David in the greatest spiritual danger?
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Oh, that is a good point. It was not when he was running
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for his life in the wilderness, hiding in caves from Saul,
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writing those desperate psalms. He was perfectly safe
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spiritually in The Cave because he was clinging to God.
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He had to. He had nothing else.
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Right the moment David was in the most catastrophic danger was
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when he was completely at ease working on the roof of his
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palace while his army was off at war.
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And that comfort led to his greatest moral failure with
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Bathsheba. Yes, affliction shatters the
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proud illusion that we can dispense with God.
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It keeps the believer clinging to the source of their
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salvation. When everything is going well,
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you easily rely on your own strength.
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But when you are crushed under the weight of trial, you realize
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you are just dust. The furnace keeps you awake.
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It forces you to stay vigilant. Exactly, which connects
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perfectly to Nisbett's second point, self knowledge.
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I think we all recognize that the times you learn the most
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about your own character are never the days you get a
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promotion or win an award. Never.
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It is always the day everything falls apart.
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Yeah, you see what you were made of, and often it is not pretty.
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It is only in the furnace that we truly know our own sin and
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recognize our absolute need for a Savior.
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When life is easy, we might intellectually agree with the
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doctrine that we need grace, but we do not feel it in our moans.
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We think we are patient until we are stuck in traffic or dealing
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with a rebellious child. Oh, absolutely.
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Or we think we are brave until our health fails.
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Right affliction burns away our self righteousness.
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It shows us our own fragility, our impatience, our selfishness
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and our capacity for failure. And that realization forces us
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to look outside ourselves for rescue.
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The trial is a mirror and the reflection is meant to drive us
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to Christ. Which brings us to Nisbet's
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Third Point, World knowledge. OK, world knowledge.
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Affliction exposes the emptiness of the world.
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It pulls back the curtain on everything society tells us is
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valuable. So status, wealth, all of that.
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Consider what the world offers as security, riches, pleasures,
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social status, a vast network of influential friends.
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When a severe trial hits, you suddenly realize the absolute
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limitations of those things. Yeah, your bank account cannot
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cure a terminal illness. No, it cannot.
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And your social status cannot offer Peace of Mind when you are
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facing eternity or, you know, dealing with the loss of a
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child. Affliction teaches us that the
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things the world values cannot save us at the bar of God, as
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Job found out when he lost everything.
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Earthly comforts are miserable comforters in the face of
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genuine tragedy. So it teaches us to hold the
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things of this world very loosely.
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Very loosely. OK, so we established that this
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suffering is ancient, it is frequent, and it is ordained for
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our safety, our self knowledge and our understanding of the
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world's emptiness. But the Psalm does not leave us
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wallowing in the misery of that reality.
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No, the tone shifts dramatically.
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Verse 2 features this massive triumphant pivot.
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The psalmist repeats the first line many a time.
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Have they afflicted me from my youth?
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But then adds this incredible statement.
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Yet they have not prevailed against me.
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Charles Spurgeon notes the weight of this The enemies had
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every opportunity. They had the upper hand time and
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time again. The military might, the
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political leverage, the societal numbers.
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But they never once gained the ultimate victory.
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Never to grasp the theological logic of that survival, we have
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to look back at Genesis chapter 32, don't we?
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Yes, the story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the
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Covenant at the River Jabek. During that intense, agonizing
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physical struggle in the dark, Jacob refused to let go until he
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received a blessing. The text tells us that Jacob,
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whose name was changed to Israel, prevailed with God.
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He walked away from that encounter with a limp.
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Signifying his unbrokenness, yes, but he had the blessing.
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The deduction there is incredible because if Israel
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wrestled with God and prevailed, then what can Nisa do?
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What can a hostile army do? That is the core conclusion.
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If you have the blessing of the Almighty, the opposition of the
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world is rendered futile. No man or devil can Vanquish the
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one who has prevailed with God. The historical survival of the
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Christian faith is the perfect tangible proof of this reality.
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Just look at the early church under the Roman Empire.
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A perfect example. You had a small, marginalized
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group of people. They had no secular authority,
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they held no political offices, they had no vast treasury to
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fund armies, and they certainly lacked the elite philosophical
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pedigree of the Roman academies. They were fishermen, slaves,
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tradesmen, ordinary people. Right.
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And the state machinery of the Roman Empire, the most
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formidable empire the world had ever seen, was explicitly
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mobilized to crush them. Because the state viewed them as
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a threat to the societal order. Right, they wouldn't worship the
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Emperor. Exactly.
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So the emperor's figures like Nero, Decius, Diocletian, they
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utilized every terrifying instrument of state terror.
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Available as horrifying. Subterranean dungeons, The RAC
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gibbets. They literally threw Christians
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to starving wild beasts in the Amphitheatre for public
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entertainment. And Nero turning believers into
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human torches to light his gardens.
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And yet, what was the result? The faith spread like wildfire.
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The teeth of wild beasts could not grind it down.
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The fire could not burn it. The water could not drown.
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It the more the Roman state tried to stamp it out, the
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faster it multiplied across the empire.
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So what does this mean for you, the listener who is sitting in
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your car, your living room, right now, feeling completely
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overrun by your current circumstances?
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It is easy to feel disconnected from ancient history.
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Right. You might be listening to this
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thinking, OK, the Roman Empire might have failed, but my
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enemies, my financial collapse, my health crisis, they feel like
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they're prevailing right now. It requires a massive shift in
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how we define what it means to prevail.
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Yeah, the world defines prevailing as an absence of
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pain, a victory parade, or a life of uninterrupted comfort.
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But the biblical definition of prevailing is survival through
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the storm. I like to picture it like a
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coastal lighthouse built on a rocky, jagged Cliff.
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Oh that is a great image. Imagine standing inside that
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structure during a massive hurricane.
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The waves are 50 feet high, crashing violently against the
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glass. The wind is howling like a
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freight train. The entire stone structure is
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vibrating. It would be terrifying.
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If you were standing inside that lighthouse, feeling the wall
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shake, it feels like the storm is winning.
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It feels like destruction is inevitable.
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But when the morning breaks and the clouds part, the lighthouse
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is still standing. It is not standing because the
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glass is indestructible or because the storm lacked fury.
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It is standing because of the bedrock it is anchored into.
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The storm had of opportunity. It unleashed everything it had,
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but it did not prevail. That visual captures the essence
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of verse 2 perfectly. The survival of the believer is
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not based on their own structural integrity.
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It is based entirely on the foundation of Christ.
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The foundation holds. The enemy is permitted to rage,
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the winds are allowed to howl, but the enemy does not get the
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final word. So moving into verse 3, the
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imagery shifts from a battle or a storm to something much more
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visceral and intimate. Very physical.
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The text says the plowers plowed upon my back.
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They made long their furrows. We're looking at a vivid,
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gruesome image of scourging, where the back of the nation is
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torn up like a field. It is a shocking transition from
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the corporate survival of Israel to this intensely physical
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description of pain. Now, some modern critics read
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that verse and claim it's a mixed metaphor, right, arguing
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that comparing a human back to a dirt field is clunky poetry.
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They do, yes, but that critique completely misses the historical
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context of the ancient Near East.
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Right. Because if you understand
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ancient farming practices and ancient penal systems, this
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imagery overlaps with terrifying precision.
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Let us examine the agricultural side first.
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When farmers in the East plowed a field, the iron blade of the
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plow did not dig as deep into the earth as massive modern
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mechanical plows do today. Right.
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They didn't have diesel tractors.
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No, the furrows were relatively superficial, but they were
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exceptionally long. The farmer would drive the oxen
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and score the earth from one end of the field straight to the
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other in a continuous unbroken line.
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Which instantly makes me picture the Roman scourging the liquors
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using those terrible whips. The overlap is undeniable.
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The Roman instrument of torture was the flagellum.
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It was a whip with multiple leather thongs, and woven into
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the ends of those thongs were pieces of bone, lead, balls, or
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sharp metal. Just designed to do maximum
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tissue damage. When a prisoner was stripped and
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tied to a post, the liquor would strike the bag back and the
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metal would dig into the skin and muscle.
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As the whip was pulled away, it tore the flesh in long bleeding
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whales. And the resulting wounds look
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precisely like the long, straight ridges of a plowed dirt
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field. Exactly.
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You cannot read that description without it pointing explicitly
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to the Passion of Jesus Christ. During his trial, he was handed
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over to the Roman soldiers who stripped him and executed A
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brutal scourging. Spurgeon comments heavily on
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this. He does, noting that Christ's
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back was literally torn open to resemble a plowed field.
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He experienced the ultimate physical fulfillment of the
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Psalm in His own body as the substitute for His people.
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Christ endured the deepest, most agonizing furrows, but the text
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is also applying this reality to the church, to the collective
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people of God throughout history.
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We are the field being plowed. Yes, and this brings us to
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Alexander Henderson, the Scottish theologian who offers
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what is arguably the theological core of our discussion today.
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He introduces the masterful husbandman analogy.
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I love this analogy. It completely reframes how we
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view suffering and the people causing it.
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It changes everything. Henderson points out that God is
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the great husbandman. He is the sovereign farmer who
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owns the field, and he is the one who owns the plow.
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But we must maintain a critical distinction here, right?
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God owns the field and the equipment, but He is not the one
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holding the whip or driven by malicious intent.
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Right. Satan and wicked men operate as
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the plowman and the oxen in this scenario.
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So the oppressors, the tyrants, the people causing the
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affliction, they are just farm animals in this theological
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framework. Conceptually, yes, they are the
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oxen. The oxen are driven forward by
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the goads of worldly provocations.
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Their own hatred, their malice, their desire for power or
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revenge pushes them forward to tear up the field.
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But here is the magnificent, comforting truth of Reformed
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theology regarding Providence. They cannot yoke themselves.
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Exactly. Those oxen cannot yoke
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themselves to that plow without God's explicit license.
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They need permission to even enter to the field.
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It reminds me of the opening chapters of Job.
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Yes, where Satan has to stand before the throne and ask for
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permission to strike Job and God sets very specific boundaries on
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what Satan's allowed to do. That is the exact parallel the
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oxen need permission to enter the field, and once they are
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permitted in, they cannot cut one single inch deeper than the
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husband then allows. God tempers the iron of the
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plow. The oxen might desire to turn
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the entire field upside down to destroy the soil completely so
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nothing ever grows again. But God restricts their
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movement. He holds the reins.
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This is a massive paradigm shift for anyone listening.
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The person or the circumstance causing you intense pain right
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now is not acting outside of God's jurisdiction.
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No, they are not. They might be acting out of pure
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malice, driven by their own evil intentions, but God is
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superintending the entire process.
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He is sovereign over the furrow. Which naturally leads to the
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question of purpose. What is the goal of taking a
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shop iron blade to a dirt field? Well, the farmer does it to
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break up the dirt to aerate the soil.
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The goal is to break up the stiff fallow ground.
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The human heart naturally becomes hard, compacted and
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resistant to grace. Just from daily living.
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Yes, if the soil remains hard, the seat of the word simply
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bounces off the surface and is carried away by the wind or
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eaten by birds. The enemies intend to destroy
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the believer. Their goal is annihilation.
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But the great husbandmen uses their wicked intentions to
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prepare the soil. The blade cuts open the hard
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heart, creating a space where the seed can drop in, find
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moisture and take root. The enemies are doing God's
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husbandry without even realizing they're being used.
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They. Have no idea.
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That is a staggering thought. The devil thinks he's destroying
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the field, but he is actually just aerating the soil so that
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God can plant something beautiful.
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The sheer malice of the enemy is hijacked by the sovereignty of
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God to produce spiritual fruit. The oppressor is outwitted by
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the very action they think is bringing them victory.
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And that leads us to the precise moment when the plowing stops.
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Look at verse 4. The Lord is righteous.
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He have cut us under the cords of the wicked.
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Because the plowing has to stop eventually.
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Right. If the field is getting torn up
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to this degree, how does the farmer decide when enough is
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enough? There has to be a stopping point
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or there's no field left to plant.
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And when the text says he cuts the cords, what is the
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mechanical reality of that action?
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This relies on the literal mechanics of the agricultural
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metaphor. The cords are the thick, heavy,
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twisted ropes that tie the oxen to the yoke, which in turn is
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attached to the plow itself. So the harness.
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Yes. The oxen represent the enemies,
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and the plow represents the instrument of affliction.
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The farmer holds the knife as well as the rains.
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So God steps into the field when the soil is sufficiently
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prepared. He steps into the field and
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notice the verb. He does not gently untie the
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knots. No, the text says, he cuts them
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asunder. The action is violent, sudden
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and irreversible. By cutting the cords, he
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completely ruins the machinery of the oppressors.
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The. Oxen can continue to rage.
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They can pull forward with all their might, but the plow stops
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moving. The connection between the
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oppressors anger and the believers affliction is severed.
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You see that sudden severance throughout biblical history.
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The Red Sea crashing down on Pharaoh's army.
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The Angel of the Lord striking down the Assyrian camp in a
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single night. The oppressor is moving forward
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with full momentum and suddenly the cord is cut.
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But the phrasing there the Lord is righteous, is doing a lot of
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heavy be lifting. It answers the cry for justice.
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It does. God bears with the long furrows
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for a season because He is utilizing them to prepare the
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soil, but His nature as a righteous judge demands that He
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stopped the plowing eventually. He hates those who hurt his
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people. Intensely, even though he
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utilizes their hatred for a temporary season to achieve his
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own sovereign ends, he holds them accountable for their
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malice. The scripture in Zechariah
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states he that toucheth you touches the apple of his eye.
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To poke the pupil of God's eye is an action that invites swift,
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devastating judgement. It is a terrifying realization
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for the wicked. They are being used as a tool of
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affliction, and once the work is done, the tool will be discarded
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and judged for the damage it desired to cause.
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Which brings us to verse five. Wait, I have a massive problem
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with this next part. Verse 5 says let them all be
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confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
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This is an imprecatory prayer. The tricky imprecatory psalms.
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Yeah, praying for people to be confounded and turn back sounds
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incredibly vindictive to modern ears.
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We are taught to love our enemies, to pray for those who
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persecute us, to turn the other cheek.
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How does a believer praying for the downfall of their enemies
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square with the command to love? It is a vital tension to
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address, and theologians have wrestled with the imprecatory
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Psalms for centuries. But we have to look at the text
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with absolute precision. Notice the psalmist does not say
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all who hate me, the prayer says all who hate Zion.
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So the distinction is between a personal vendetta and a
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corporate defense. Spot on.
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Theologians like Wolfgang Musculus and Thomas LeBlanc
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point out that this prayer is not driven by personal revenge.
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If someone steals your coat, you give them your shirt.
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If they insult you, you bear it. But this is driven by a zeal for
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the people of God. The preservation of the Church
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and the cause of divine truth. It is the difference between
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someone insulting my shoes on the street, which I can just
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ignore, and someone trying to burn down my house with my
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family sleeping inside. I have a moral obligation to
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stop the arsonist. That analogy captures the moral
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necessity of the prayer perfectly, and furthermore,
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LeBlanc introduces the concept of good confusion.
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Good confusion. When the psalmist prays for the
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enemies of Zion to be confounded, it does not mandate
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their immediate physical destruction.
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It can be a confounding that leads to repentance.
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I instantly think of the Apostle Paul.
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Saul of Tarsus is the ultimate historical example of this.
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He was on the road to Damascus carrying letters of authority to
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arrest Christians. He was breathing out murderous
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threats against the church. He was the most dangerous enemy
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of Zion breathing at that moment.
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And God answered the prayer of Psalm 1/29.
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He struck Saul with a blinding light, threw him into the dirt,
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and completely confounded his plans.
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He was turned back from his evil way.
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And that confusion, that shattering of his pride and his
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agenda, led to his conversion. Yes.
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So praying for an enemy's plans to be frustrated, praying for
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their wicked agenda to fail spectacularly, can actually be
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the most loving thing you can do for their soul.
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You're praying for the mechanism of their pride to be broken so
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they can see their need for grace.
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However, we cannot ignore the alternative if they refuse to
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repent. There is a desire for strict
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justice present in the text. We can understand this through
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the framework of treason. Treason against a king.
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Loyal subjects of a king naturally wish I'll to the plots
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of traitors attempting to overthrow the Kingdom.
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Like the old British anthem, confound their politics,
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frustrate their Navish tricks. You are praying for the safety
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of the realm. It is a righteous desire to see
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wicked policies fail. You cannot love what is good
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without simultaneously hating what is evil.
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If you love sheep, you must hate the wolves.
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That makes total sense. Charles Spurgeon made an
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insightful point about this. He said if you read the Book of
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Martyrs and study the horrific, calculated tortures inflicted on
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innocent believers throughout history, you will feel the
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rightness of justice against cruel oppressors.
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When you read the historical accounts of the English
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Reformation figures like Queen Mary I known as Bloody Mary or
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Bishop Bonner, you read the accounts of men and women being
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tied to wood and set on fire simply for reading the Bible in
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English or refusing to recant their theology.
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It is chilling. When you read the sheer cruelty
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of those acts, a sense of righteous anger is the only
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appropriate moral response. If you do not desire to see that
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kind of cruelty stopped, judged and punished, it indicates a
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severe lack of love for the victims.
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Desiring justice against tyrants is not a character flaw in the
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believer. It is a reflection of the holy
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character of God. God is just, and He will not
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allow wickedness to triumph forever.
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Which transitions us into the final section of the Psalm,
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verses 6 through 8, where the psalmist describes the ultimate
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fate of these oppressors. We get another agricultural
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metaphor here, but it is very different from the plowing the
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wicked are compared to grass upon the housetops, which wither
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at the fore, groweth up roof grass.
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I'm picturing modern suburban houses with slanted roofs and
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asphalt shingles. Grass obviously wouldn't grow
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there. How did ancient roofs even
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support plant life? The architecture of the ancient
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Near East, especially the houses of the poor and rustic country
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dwellings, was entirely different.
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They did not have peaked roofs to shed snow or rain.
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Right, less rainfall. They had flat roofs which
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functioned as an additional living space.
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The surface of these roofs was constructed by laying down
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beams, covering them with brush and then applying a thick
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mixture of mud, ashes and straw. So they would pack it down.
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Yes, they would use a heavy stone roller to pack this mud
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mixture down hard and flat. So the roof is essentially a
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packed dirt floor elevated above the house.
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Right now, because seeds naturally blow around in the
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wind, they easily land on these dirt roofs.
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And because the roof is elevated and entirely exposed to the
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intense heat of the sun, those seeds germinate and sprout
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incredibly quickly. But.
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The biological catch is that there is no depth of soil.
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There is no depth and there is no retained moisture.
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The mud is packed hard and shallow so the grass shoots up
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rapidly, creating this flashy, vibrant green show across the
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roof. But it possesses no root system
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to sustain it. Before it can even reach
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maturity, the very same sun that caused it to sprout rapidly
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scorches it and it dies. It dies before it can be
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harvested or utilized for anything.
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It is just a temporary flash of green.
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How does this biological reality apply to the enemies of the
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Church? The prosperity of the Wicked is
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flashy, fast, and entirely rootless.
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It generates a massive noise and a visual spectacle, but it
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vanishes quickly. The old proverb is soon ripe,
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soon rotten. The wicked make incredible speed
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to success. They amass wealth, they gather
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armies, they build monuments to themselves.
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But they make equal speed to their own ruin.
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That makes me think of Emperor Julian the Apostate.
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He is the quintessential example of roof grass in ancient
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history. Julian's narrative fits this
27:08
metaphor perfectly. Julian was a Roman emperor who,
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after ascending to the throne, completely rejected his
27:13
Christian upbringing and tried to revive paganism across the
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empire. And he had all the resources to
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do it. He possessed the vast wealth of
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Rome, the legions, the intellectual academies.
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He wrote treatises against the Galileans, as he called
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Christians. He even attempted to rebuild the
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Jewish temple in Jerusalem specifically to prove Jesus's
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prophecy about its destruction wrong.
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He threw the entire weight of the Roman Empire into uprooting
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Christianity. And yet, history records that
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while his workers were trying to clear the foundations to rebuild
27:43
the temple, fire erupted from the earth, terrifying the
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workers and halting the project completely.
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Julian's reign was a massive, flashy show of power, but it had
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no root in the truth. One of the early Church Fathers,
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watching this imperial campaign against the Church, simply
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remarked that little cloud will soon be gone.
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And it was Julian died in battle against the Persians after
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ruling for only a couple of years.
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The historical legend claims his final words were Thou hast
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conquered, O Galilean. His massive efforts to crush the
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church withered away like grass on a hot roof.
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Evil carries the seeds of its own dissolution.
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Every skeptical philosophy, every violent heresy, every
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political movement aimed at destroying the people of God
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comes onto the scene with immense sound and fury.
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They look unstoppable, but they are poor rootless things.
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Verses 7 and 8 detail what happens, or rather what doesn't
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happen, when harvest time comes for this roof grass, the text
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says, where with the mower filleth not his hand, nor he
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that bindeth sheaves his bosom. To understand the imagery, we
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look at ancient harvesting customs.
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Mowers would grasp the stalks of grain with one hand, cut them
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with a sickle, and sweep the harvested bundles into their
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bosoms or the folds of their outer garments.
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To carry them away to the threshing floor, right?
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But roof grass yields absolutely nothing to grass.
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Nothing at all. It promises a harvest with its
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initial green blades, but it delivers ash.
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Evil, when all is said and done, proves to be a complete
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disappointment. It is a non entity in the world.
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When it dries up and blows away, the house is not impoverished.
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Nobody misses it. No one.
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Mourns the loss of the roof grass.
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And the final verse of the Psalm points out that no one walking
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by says the blessing of the Lord be upon you.
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We bless you in the name of the Lord.
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This refers to the cultural greeting used during a
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prosperous harvest. We see this beautifully
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illustrated in the book of Roof. Oh, when Boaz greets his
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workers. Yes.
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When Boaz goes out from Bethlehem to his workers in the
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field, he greets them by saying, the Lord be with you, and they
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respond, The Lord bless you. It was a societal norm to invoke
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God's blessing upon a fruitful, honest harvest.
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But the psalmist is concluding that true believers cannot bless
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the ungodly in their pursuits. We cannot wish Godspeed to evil
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endeavors, no matter how prosperous they look for a brief
30:02
moment. Because to do so would
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compromise the name of the righteous Jehovah.
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You cannot attach God's holy blessing to unrighteous deeds.
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The wicked might flourish for a brief season, they might tear up
30:13
the field, but they leave no trace of blessing behind.
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Their legacy is sterile. As we bring all these massive
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theological concepts together, there is a historical event that
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functions as a stunning climax to everything we have discussed.
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It involves a group known as the Vaudois or the Waldenses.
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Oh, an incredible story. Their story encapsulates the
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plowing, the cutting of the cords and the withering of the
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roof grass perfectly. The history of the Vaudois under
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the leadership of Henri Arnaud is one of the most breathtaking
30:43
narratives of perseverance in church history.
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They were a group of early Protestant Christians living in
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the high Alpine valleys of the Piedmont.
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And they faced just intense, brutal persecution for.
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Centuries from the surrounding state powers and the established
31:00
state church, the Duke of Savoy launched military campaigns
31:04
against them. They were massacred in their own
31:06
villages, their lands were stolen and the survivors were
31:09
driven out of their homes into the freezing mountains.
31:12
It looked like the enemy had completely prevailed.
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The furrows on their backs were long and deep.
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They were forced into a bitter winter exile in Switzerland.
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The fields were empty. The churches were burned.
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But they did not give up. After a period of exile, Ari
31:26
Arno, who acted as both their pastor and their military
31:29
commander, organized what became known as the Glorious Return.
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Which was a perilous military campaign against overwhelming
31:36
odds. A small band of these exiled
31:39
believers marched back over the treacherous snow covered Alps,
31:43
fighting off massive enemy garrisons, determined to reclaim
31:47
their homeland. And against all human logic,
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they succeeded. They defeated the army sent
31:52
against them. When they finally returned to
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their own valleys, when they stepped back into their own
31:57
churches for the first time since their banishment, the
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historical accounts say the enthusiasm was irrepressible.
32:03
The accounts describe them chanting Psalm 74 to the literal
32:06
clash of arms, and then Arnott mounted the pulpit in the
32:10
reclaimed church. He stood there, holding a drawn
32:12
sword in one hand and a Bible in the other.
32:15
That is an incredible visual, the tension of earthly reality
32:18
and divine truth held together. And the text he chose to preach
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from in that moment of restoration with Psalm 1/29, he
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declared in front of his battered, victorious
32:28
congregation that he would not rest until the rightful
32:30
settlements of his brethren were completely restored.
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He. Recognized the massive reality
32:35
of the text they lived through. The flowers had made made long
32:38
their furrows on the backs of the Vaudois.
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The persecution was horrific, but God the righteous husbandman
32:45
had cut the cords of the wicked. The persecuting armies of the
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Duke had withered like grass on the housetops, but the church
32:52
had survived the winter and returned.
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What a staggering theological scope we've covered today.
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Let's synthesize this without losing the weight of the
33:00
concepts. We have seen that affliction is
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guaranteed. The Church has been persecuted
33:04
from its youth, from the brickyards of Egypt to the Roman
33:07
amphitheaters to the Alpine valleys.
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But that affliction is entirely restrained by a sovereign God.
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The enemies are just oxen pulling a plow.
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They rage, they pull. But God holds the license.
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He uses the sharpest blades forged by wicked men to prepare
33:21
the soil of the soul. He directs the furrow.
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We also saw that evil, no matter how strong it appears in the
33:26
moment, is flashy and rootless. It is grass on a dirt roof.
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It sprouts fast, looks impressive, but yields a barren
33:36
harvest and blows away, leaving nothing of value behind.
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It provides immense comfort to know that the Lord is righteous,
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and in His perfect timing He steps into the field and cuts
33:45
the cords, arresting the momentum of the oppressor.
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Before we close, I want to leave you, the listener, with a final
33:52
thought to Mull over. Building on that central
33:55
agricultural theme, think about the times in your own life where
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you have felt completely plowed over by harsh circumstances.
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The times where it felt like long furrows of pain, grief, or
34:05
betrayal were being carved into your life, tearing up everything
34:08
you thought was stable. Those are difficult moments to
34:10
process. Very difficult.
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But what if those very wounds, the ones you begged God to
34:15
prevent, the ones you prayed would avoid your field entirely,
34:19
are the exclusive locations where the seeds of your greatest
34:21
spiritual fruit can actually take root?
34:23
It is the violent breaking of the ground that allows the seed
34:25
to bypass the hard surface and find the moisture it needs to
34:28
grow. So the next time the storm hits
34:30
the lighthouse or the iron plow enters your field, you can rest
34:35
in the knowledge of who is holding the goads.
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Thank you for walking through this material with us.
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We hope you carry these insights with you into your week, and we
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look forward to having you back for our next deep dive on
34:45
reformed thinking.